


Jasper Dies After The End-Credits Scene

by phobiaDeficient (TheTriggeredHappy)



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Gen, Guilt, I... killed my mcelboy, Like for real this is some kinda dark shit, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, daniel is barely in this except the beginning, mild PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 12:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11463498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTriggeredHappy/pseuds/phobiaDeficient
Summary: David calls Daniel the wrong name on accident and is sent on an unpleasant trip down memory lane (again).





	Jasper Dies After The End-Credits Scene

**Author's Note:**

> *you, at mcdonald's window* hey can i get some uhhhhhhhhhhhhh happy david and jasper interactions
> 
> *me, dead-eyed* happy machine broke

"So past the tents is the east trail, which goes right past the old Sleepy Peak Willow, a real staple of some of the older camp traditions, but there's also some pretty dangerous wildlife out in that neck of the woods, so make sure to go with someone else if you wanna hike out that way," David rambled on, sparing occasional glances at the new guy as he talked.

"Mm-hmm. I'll make sure to keep that in mind," the blond said, nodding.

"Man, it's so nice to finally have another guy around for me to talk to, I've missed having friends my age around! And really, Jasper, I can't help but think that..." The silence that fell was awkward, stilted.

"...It's—it's Daniel," he corrected slowly. "...David, who's Jasper?"

"I-I... he..." David gulped. "Jasper is... um, was, I mean... he..." The redhead broke eye contact. "Just a guy I used to know when I was younger. You... you just remind me of him a bit."

"Oh...?" Daniel asked, raising an eyebrow. "How did you know him?"

"He went to camp at the same time as me, I just—forget I said anything," David stammered, turning away.

But he turned and looked at the lake and he was reminded brutally of a night a long time ago with a boy whose shoes could light up the dark with a smile that lit up the world just a little and the light gone from his eyes and replaced with so much fear and—

"David?"

He hated this. Because that time over a decade ago was followed right away by a Mr. Cameron Campbell in the flesh who told him that nothing had happened at all and sometimes when he helped new campers take their bags off the bus he forced himself to believe that because if he didn't then how on earth could he let them come here—

"David, if you don't want to talk about it..."

And that was betrayal. That betrayed the trust Jasper had in him, his best friend and he was there and that was one of the only things that David would stand his ground on without fail was that he was _there_. No matter what he told himself when the sun still shone over the lake (ignoring the blemish in the center, the scar, the spike, the small and innocuous hell), he would lie in bed and listen to the sounds of the woods and he would know in those moments before he fell asleep that he hadn't imagined it. No, Mr. Campbell, his memory wasn't failing him, he wasn't remembering wrong, he wasn't confused, he wasn't remembering a bad dream and he wasn't making it out worse than it was and Jasper _hadn't_ _survived_ , because he had made a promise to David, and David had made a promise to him.

"...I won't make you remember."

_"I won't ever forget about you."_

It was during one of those nights when they both told each other quiet confessions that they never could bring themselves to say in the daylight, about two parents who didn't care and didn't want to care and so they sent their child away and out of sight and about one parent then none and a lawyer saying quietly but loud enough to hear that the child would be best off somewhere where nobody would ask a lot of questions while the last of the rights were sorted. And one said, "One day I think they'll forget they even have a son. I think they might've already." And the other said, "I can't ever go home, because I don't have a home anymore. Do you think they'll remember to pick me up at the end of the summer?"

And one promised, "I won't leave until I know you're going back to a real house with real people," and the other promised, "I won't leave you all alone, I'll send mail as soon as I have a mailbox to send it from," and they both smiled and knew the other was too, even through the darkness. One of them had red hair, and he said,

"I won't forget about you if you promise not to forget about me."

"It's a promise. We're done being forgotten about, forever!" the other swore, with the sincerity that only kids can muster without feeling embarrassed. "I hope I'll get a mailbox wherever I live next; the whole plan hinges on it, and I don't want to lose my best friend!"

And David replied, and it was a confession, a plead, an epiphany, a statement of fact that hell nor high water could change, "I won't ever forget about you."

Daniel's expression had crossed over from uncomfortable to mild concern. David just walked away, murmuring what he hoped was an excuse and an apology.

He remembered watching with fascination as his best friend cautiously poked and prodded the Quartermaster for information, somehow incredible at detective work like that, and how he learned the story about some terrible evil that needed defeating on the island in the center of the lake. He and Jasper had talked for days, and decided that since they were the two best campers on Lake Lilac (they both had received a pin at some point to prove it), there was nobody so qualified to find and defeat the evil. David joked that the evil was probably greed or something stupid like that. Jasper replied that maybe the real evil was the friends they made along the way.

He remembered telling Jasper that he'd borrowed a boat (and the lender just didn't and wouldn't ever know about it), remembered helping to row and it being really, really dark and the other boy had a light-up watch that told them it was so, so late. He remembered no light-up shoes because he'd learned after the last adventure that it was probably a bad idea to wear them on a quest, he remembered almost ten minutes just finding somewhere to tie off the boat, he remembered there being bumps in the night and the fear in his best friend's eyes. He remembered them gripping each other's hands, and he could never remember who took whose. Only that it hadn't helped him.

Because it was dark. Because it was so, so dark and the full moon didn't matter if the trees wilted and twisted into a roof over their heads to block out everything, everything, block out the other boy's eyes and where their hands clasped between them and the something (sword knife axe razor scissors nails claws teeth not even a gleam in the night–) and there wasn't even a scream, there was a gasp and a choke and a gasp and a gasp and no exhale, no exhale and David was so afraid because the hand was clutching so much more tightly and he tried to look for something, anything but he called out and he heard movement somewhere and felt something near him and David screamed and it was gone and.

David couldn't see the (blood blood blood) stains that had covered his hands (arms shirt shoes how did it get on his face how) until he left the woods again. In Jasper desperately gripping at his wrist with his free hand, he lit up the face of the watch, for only a moment.

The eyes were scared. They were so, so scared. The pupils in those eyes were nearly gone, shrunk so small. So long later in first aid training, David would choke on his breath because he had seen this warning sign of shock before. He had seen the contortion of absolute mental-shutdown terror in the face of his best friend (only friend at the camp only friend for a long while and the best friend he'd ever had why why why), and he began crying.

That was the last time he saw Jasper's face. He didn't come out of the woods seven hours later with David, 5:50 AM, just before sunrise, when the Quartermaster found him with a blinding flashlight and dragged him away and stopped bothering with the interrogation when it was clear that David couldn't actually speak for a little while. Jasper wasn't on the boat. Jasper wasn't anywhere.

He probably just had to go (to the hospital to that courtroom to a new family to do something else at another summer camp). He would see him next summer. By the time he was allowed to return to his tent, perhaps noon, all of his stuff always gone. He had already given the other boy his address for mail or visits. He would see Jasper again. As he got in the car at the precipice of autumn, he knew it. He knew that he would see his best friend again.

Nine months passed. He received two pieces of mail in that time; his final report card from school, and the letter confirming that he had successfully re-applied to attend camp in the upcoming summer.

So many years passed. David signed on as a counselor at Camp Campbell. He helped to set up things for the upcoming year.

That radio in the storeroom looked familiar, as did the name scratched onto the back of it. That set of DvDs looked familiar. That hat looked familiar. That bag looked familiar.

David hadn't cried when he found Jasper's things tucked away in storage, because he had known from the moment he looked at those terrified eyes. Those terrified, fragile eyes.

David should've died that night, that was sure as anything. He should've died alongside Jasper. He should've died so that his parents could get the news in the mail that he had gone mysteriously missing. He should've died so that they could not bother with pressing charges and start selling all of his things. He should've died so that he didn't have to live with the knowledge of what it felt like holding his dead best friend's hand for seven hours because he didn't want him to be afraid. He didn't want to remember. He didn't want to anything.

He threw himself into camp activities because he wanted everyone to know what Jasper had felt like when he loved Camp Campbell, wanted everyone to be that joyous and kind and clever. Jasper had been so happy. Jasper had been everything the world needed. Jasper was dead, and David had made a promise.

From a distance he watched as Daniel interacted with some of the kids, talking animatedly and smiling that wide grin of his. He repeated the second promise he made to himself, the promise he made as he first stepped onto the grounds not as a camper, but as a counselor. He thought to himself, "I swear on these borrowed years of my life that none of these kids will die on my watch."

He made true on that promise later in the day, although he didn't know it. Daniel left. Blond hair left in an ambulance (but blond hair didn't get the ambulance), was carted to the hospital (why hadn't he gone to a hospital), and was gone (he was gone).

He was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you liked, i'm @thetriggeredhappy on tumblr, hmu about anything ever


End file.
